A writer’s notebook is a bucket. An empty vessel kept around to catch any pieces of soul or brain or life that might shift loose during daily adventures. It is, next to pen and ink, one of the most important tools in the literary tool chest. Even if your preferred method of writing is through quick and practiced QWERTY, a notebook is a must for scribbles, doodles, fragments, and away from keyboard inspiration.
To encourage the use of these paper purveyors of personal permanence, the next Literature and Libation writing contest will focus on the use of writing with pen and paper.
The rules are simple:
- Write a short story of at least 300 words, but no more than 1200 words
- Some of your story must be written longhand (it can be the original idea, story notes, the first sentence, the whole first draft, whatever works for you)
- Include a picture of your hand-written content with your post as proof (a post without a picture doesn’t count)
- Post it on your blog and drop a link to it in the comments of this post
Submissions are due Monday, July 15, by 11:59 PM, EST (two weeks from today). Anyone and everyone with a story is encouraged to enter. I’m not mean and don’t bite on not-Full moons. Don’t be shy!
Once I’ve received all the stories, I’ll create a poll so we can vote for our favorites.
Two winners – one selected by popular vote, the other by me in a completely unfair and subjective manner – will receive free editing on the submitted story and another of their choosing. For testimonials to the quality of my edits, please ask previous winners JC (of One Writer and His Blog) and Doug (of Baltimore Bistros and Beer).
To prove I’m a fully licensed practicer of what I preach, here is the rough draft of my short story Blueberry HillΒ that will be featured in issue 15 of Outside In Literary and Travel Magazine. (Yes, that is really what my handwriting looks like. My dad says it looks like a drunk spider wandered into an inkwell and then across the page. Pretty accurate, I guess.)
Tagged: doodles, Editing, free editing! if you win the contest, handwriting, longhand, longhand writing, notebook, notes, paper, pen, pen and paper, scribbles, writing, writing contest
I love your angles! It really does look like a spider’s legs. I look forward to trying this out. π
I have five different notebooks. When you have a lot of stuff going on in your head, you need a lot of different places to put it…
Here’s my contest entry. π
https://byjhmae.wordpress.com/2013/07/01/longhand-fiction-writing-contest-entry-via-literature-and-libation/
Reblogged this on shamrockexpress and commented:
What a wonderful blog, written well! Follow Literature and Libation!
Thank you for the reblog! Glad you enjoyed my ramblings π
Here’s my entry. π Don’t mind my God awful handwriting. http://weloveclandus.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=56&action=edit&message=6&postpost=v2
Thanks for entering! It looks like this link is going to your admin page, and thus we can’t view your story. If you want to send me another link, I’ll be happy to edit your comment for you π
Oops sorry!! Thank you! π Let me know if this link works, I’m pretty new to wordpress lol http://weloveclandus.wordpress.com/2013/07/03/the-virus/
Hey Oliver… thanks again for running this and I hope you like this one as much as you liked the last. http://onewriterandhisblog.com/2013/07/09/my-blood-for-your-thoughts/
Cheers, JC
Thanks JC! Look forward to reading it.
Wish I had time to come up with something for this. Sounds fun. Come to think of it, the last time I wrote a story even partly in longhand was probably the late ’80s!
I wish you did too! Oh well, c’est la vie. Hopefully you can enter the next one π
Is cursive required???
Yes! No! Maybe!
But no. I can write in cursive, but the result is even MORE illegible than that smattering of ink up top.
Here’s my entry for the contest –
http://reginalavalley.wordpress.com/2013/07/11/and-now-for-something-entirely-different/
Yes! I really look forward to reading your story, Regina. Thanks for entering.
Really enjoyed doing this Oliver. Thanks for keeping me writing!
http://phillipmccollum.com/2013/07/13/the-grownup/
Here is my submission; just getting it in under the wire. Thanks for posting this, it was inspiring! I actually use a notebook to plan everything, so that bit wasn’t too hard for me.
http://tkipsky.wordpress.com/2013/07/16/longhand-writing-fiction-challenge/